In this video Joseph Campbell reveals the symbolism of solar and lunar consciousness that lies within the ritual activities of bullfighting, a serpent ritual and marriage. This is how it breaks down: the bull fighter or the priestess is the solar figure, the consciousness principle that is moving towards the birth of the new. The bull or serpent is the lunar principle, the moon power which seeks to unify and perpetuate life as it was. When the two figures meet as with the priestess and the serpent what is a ritual enactment of the sacred marriage – the solar and lunar unite – conjunction.
This video is a brief excerpt from interviews filmed with Joseph Campbell shortly before his death in 1987, previously unreleased by the Joseph Campbell Foundation – http://www.jcf.org
